There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir

by Casey Gerald

That most people do not want to lead, we knew. That most who want to lead are not willing to work, we knew. That most who are willing to work cannot endure the suffering that work requires, we knew. What we did not know was how much of their energy and our time people would waste lying about this: that a steady drip of Let me think about its and I’ll get back to yous and I’m not sures would prove that no is one of the hardest words in the English language to say—this, especially, we did not know. We learned, that summer. And so the cause depended on the few too blind to have any doubt—me and Daniel—and our friends. Perhaps it has always been this way. Those friends, to be clear, do not commit themselves to the cause. They commit themselves to you. If you are lucky, one of them may be a true believer, a zealot. May be an Elijah. But you’ll have to work for it. When I asked Elijah to join the Union, asked him to create and lead its mentoring program, he said no. Many times. Got other things to do, Case. It wasn’t because he was afraid to lead or work or suffer. No, he was one who had known suffering, though it’s not your business to know it all and not my place to tell it all.